


when the earth folded in on itself (you missed)

by rajishana



Series: among the ruins [1]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rajishana/pseuds/rajishana
Summary: Everything she is, he built. All the things she hates about herself, he taught her.A brief story about grief and the complexity of hatred.





	when the earth folded in on itself (you missed)

There are no words for the sensation of his flesh carved open by her hand. There is only the slick slide of blood, the phantom weight of the blade he gave her heavy in her now empty grip. Thanos slumps down to the floor, and Gamora collapses beside him. He gurgles his last words through his cut throat, and Gamora can barely hear him through the rush of blood in her ears.

Relief, sudden and heady, makes her dizzy. Thanos is dead. She killed him. Gamora gasps for air and is surprised when a sob escapes instead. The world has condensed around her, and she cannot escape his gravity, the black hole that is Thanos’s soon-to-be-cooling body.

Slumped over in death, Thanos almost looks small. It’s impossible; Thanos has always towered over her, immense not just in stature but in sheer power, effortless and inexhaustible. A Titan in every measure, never unsure, never shaken. After her mutiny, she often longed for that – the certainty. The bone-deep conviction that Thanos was unstoppable, and that she, his daughter, was equally so. She craved that certainty for a long time after, even as she cursed his name and fed the flame of her hatred into a bonfire.

Stars above, she hates him. Everything she hates about herself, he taught her. Everything she is, he built. He built her through praise and punishment, gentle words and savage surgeries. He broke her, made her cold and fierce, deadly and hollow, and she’s been clawing at scraps to recreate herself ever since.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair, because the last of her venomous accusations are trapped on her tongue, unheard by dead ears. Memories are pulsing behind her eyes. Does she just leave the body here? It is, perhaps, appropriate. The body of the Mad Titan left in the middle of Knowhere, another captured artwork for the Collector. She, too, is an artwork made of murder and violence, one Thanos painted with masterful strokes. But she can’t do that, can’t leave him to that indignity even if he deserves it. As her body shakes and a scream erupts from her throat, tears dripping and falling from her chin to dilute the sticky blood on her hands, Gamora knows she can’t leave him.

She will never understand him. He should have left her to die with half her planet. He should never have taken her, never told her quiet stories of his people as she collapsed into bed, aching from the wounds Nebula gave her that she returned tenfold. He should never have laid his hand on her head, murmuring soft praises after she struck down a would-be son of Thanos she barely remembers. He should never have smiled at her warmly as she learned a new maneuver, cutting the throat of her instructor. He should never have let her hit him, over and over, as she raged at him for murdering the only family she had left. He should never have gripped her tight afterward, letting her weep into his chest as she tried to carve her fingernails into his heart.

He should never have given her the dagger she plunged deep into his chest, the first gift she ever received, perfectly balanced.

Everything she is, he built. All the things she hates about herself, he taught her. All but one.

In the burning rubble of Knowhere, Gamora weeps over the body of her father, and hates the part of her that grieves.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a kind of thought experiment of what that brief moment in Knowhere might have been like for Gamora. In particular, I was really captured by that line - "all the things I hate about myself, you taught me."
> 
> I have my own complicated thoughts about their relationship - I do believe that Thanos loved her, monstrous and abusive as it was. I also believe that as a child, part of Gamora couldn't help but yearn for the gentle moments between them, even as she hated him intensely. It's that complex, twisted emotion I was interested in exploring. Quick though it was, I hope that came across.


End file.
